


Bridging

by Runespoor



Category: Fire Emblem: Soen no Kiseki/Akatsuki no Megami | Fire Emblem Path of Radiance/Radiant Dawn
Genre: Gen, International Relations, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-04
Updated: 2014-09-04
Packaged: 2018-02-16 00:20:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 780
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2248932
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Runespoor/pseuds/Runespoor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A few years after Radiant Dawn, there will be memorials for the dead, and alliances for the future, and ceremonies to act out these vows. Building a continent as well as countries.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bridging

A few years after the world woke up from a war-and-stone nightmare, there will be remembrance services, memorials and celebrations and promises of a better future. Most of these will be multinational, of course; the war against the Goddess rallied all people, even long-lost cousins from the distant land of Hatari. 

Several will be more private, Begnion’s festivities as pledges to the empress whose legitimacy it once questioned; Serenes nursing the scars of Pheonicis, quiet. Naesala might try not to be there, if not for the crows who once called him king and followed his lead, and who cannot as easily dodge behind external politics to flee Serenes for a few weeks.

There will be reconciliation speeches, again and again. The history of Tellius has never lacked in conflict, if not outright, all-continental wars, and the new monarchs are determined not to repeat the mistakes of the past. On its own it will not suffice: the tensions between the Laguz and the Beorc, the powerless and the powerful, the poor and the rich, even the conjoined wills of all the heroes of the war couldn’t simply wish them away.

But for some, it might be, if not enough, then at least the most important part.

Crimea and Daein share a history of enmity, distrust - and closeness brought from similarity.

It’s time the former were put to rest.

On the biggest reconciliation ceremony between Crimea and Daein, symbolically held on the Riven bridge, the two queens hold hands for long minutes, side by side.

There are no speeches, not today. This day is understood to be a commemoration of the soldiers and civilians felled by the fratricidal wars of the previous years - kings - generations.

Queen Elincia gazes at the bridge that once was the only road to her heritage, full of traps and danger, and at the end of which she finally, finally met her precious friends again, and laughed and smiled as she hadn’t in months, the bridge that later was crossed again in another invasion, and she wonders what the other queen is seeing. On that bridge neither of them fought, but people fought for them, in Elincia’s name and on Micaiah’s order. 

On that bridge people died, and the wars have left their impression on the stones, chasms dug by traps and onagers rather than just the wheels of merchant convoys. It used to connect Daein and Crimea like a handshake between them, but wars broke a rift into what once was a hyphen. It’s become bad luck to cross Riven bridge, or at least enough merchants prefer to travel by sea to Daein’s northern port that the queen of Crimea has started pondering about a campaign to rehabilitate it.

Queen Micaiah, as is sometimes the case, seems to sense her mood, and squeezes her hand a fraction tighter. She doesn’t turn her gaze away from the washed stone, though, and from her distant stare Elincia knows she’s seeing her own losses in that disastrous war. (There have been no such ceremonies on Begnion grounds, rivers, or especially cliffs.)

Today is not a day for speeches, but they have a new era of Tellius history to usher in, so after the ceremony is ended, Elincia turns toward Micaiah and tells her that she’s happy Crimea and Daein both stand here, sister nations.

Micaiah’s hand slips from Elincia’s just enough that Elincia understands Micaiah’s widened eyes signify a recoil - and a moment later, Micaiah relaxes. Over her shoulder Elincia can hear Lucia striding in as she instructs attendants about.

Queen Elincia thinks back of a cliff, and thinks, _oh_. Maybe the word wouldn’t have the same associations to Micaiah.

She remembers another thing from Micaiah’s relationship with her never-officially-acknowledged sister, though, so she smiles, and repeats, “yes. Let Daein and Crimea be sisters; equals.”

"Allies," agrees - corrects - Micaiah. The ghost of a shadow hangs over her eyes still, dispelled when she finishes the thought, with conviction, "in the brighter future we will have created."

It’s strong enough a promise that Elincia feels no shame in taking it at face value; fragile enough a compromise that she fears she’d break it if she insisted, sisters. Crimea and Daein deserve that much, at least.

But there will be time to work on that, and on the relations with the Laguz, and on the slow unclosing of Goldoa’s ancient, creaking doors, and on the new place of Begnion in Tellius as one among equals and no longer the first; on the relations between the countries and between the people. There is time.

At dinner she’ll talk to her advisors. Tomorrow she’ll have a proposal for Micaiah, the common rehabilitation of Riven bridge.

**Author's Note:**

> This work was inspired by the handshake between President Mitterrand and Chancellor Kohl in 1984 at Verdun, where the most murderous battle of WWI was fought. Which was an extremely important symbol of French/German cooperation and a common commeration of the losses of two countries in the world wars.


End file.
